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Based on yesterday’s post, I think the timing of this one is excellent.
I finally did what was so hard for me to do as an over-protective dad. I brought Noah on a “tough-guy” hike. The destination, Donut Falls, which you’ll remember from my little fiasco last summer when I nearly killed myself trying to get an awesome picture.
The hike itself is relatively easy, less than a mile, and hardly difficult at all. Unless you count the steep half mile or so wrong trail I accidentally took Noah, Kelsey Blue Eyes, her mom, and her grandma on (don’t worry, no injuries or heart attacks this time).
It was the perfect little hike for some perfect little pictures along the way.
Just before getting to the destination, there was a tricky little part to get over. I helped Noah get down it, overly careful not to let him slip or slide. I could tell he was slightly annoyed that I was insisting on being attached to him the entire time, but oh well. As a dad who didn’t wanna see my kid bust his head, I figured it was the least I could do.
Now, a couple hundred feet or so past this part was the bottom of the climb for those who actually wanna get right next to the falls. On the way, there was a long rock ledge. Another dad was letting his kid climb up it, and I could see Noah’s longing eyes as he watched this dad help his daughter down again. So I asked him if he wanted to try it and practice climbing to see if he would be able to do the big part of our hike. Before I could even finish the offer, he was half-way up and had done it all on his own.
He did it without fear and like it was nothing. Which kind of sucked for me because there’s nothing a whole lot worse than your kid not needing you on the tough stuff anymore. Part of me wanted him to struggle so that I could make an excuse not to attempt the climb to the falls with him. After all, lots of people just hike to the bottom and look at Donut Falls from below, so it wouldn’t necessarily be a letdown. The other part of me, however, was excited to let him experience one of the best parts of hiking… scrambling to the final landmark.
He came down and we snapped a few daddy/son pictures. He was all smiles and weirdness, proud of himself for his victorious climb.
Then, we made our way to the lookout and we started scrambling toward the falls. Kelsey with the camera, me with Noah. At first I sternly demanded that Noah not let go of my hand. I insisted that I would help him up every step of the way to avoid any calamity.
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adorable!! and you seem like an AMAZING dad Dan, we need more dads like you in the world, keep it up. :)
Letting go is so very hard. This summer I opted out of summer camp and let the boys try it on their own a couple of days during the week with a cel phone and me working 5 minutes away. I can honestly say I have been overly texting and bugging them and they have been just fine all summer. Live and let live!
Just wait until you have to let Noah drive your car...
When I think of this subject, I always think of the movie "Finding Nemo". Particularly the part where the dad is beating himself up saying, "I promised I'd never let anything happen to him!" and Dory says, "Well that's a weird thing to promise. If you never let anything happen to him, then nothing will EVER happen to him!"
I'm not sure it can be stated any better than that.
My daughter is the same age as Noah, and is my oldest, so I struggle right alongside you on this one. To make matters difficult, Ellie has Sensory Perception Disorder. Basically, she has a skewed sense of gravity. She can fall off of a chair, trip on flat clear ground, and crash into a wall most people would easily avoid.
To add to my constant heart attacks and her scrapes and bruises, she has NO FEAR. None. She always wants to climb the highest, the hardest, the most challenging things she can. She's the kid who jumps from couch to couch. She misses a lot, because her depth perception is also skewed. But I have learned that if I tell her she can't, she becomes afraid. She stops trying, and I don't want her to think like that.
So I hold my tongue, and my breath, more than most people probably do. And stock up on bandages.
My daughter is 18 and will be leaving for college in a month. I have always been single mom and I am fairly laid back. Unfortunately my daughter has some pretty tough anxiety issues. For most of her life everyone has always said that she will never be able to go off to college and she will live with me forever. But I felt the need to prove them wrong and let them know how really strong she is. I let her apply to several school in different states and in the end she will be 6 hours away from me. Far nough that she will have to learn to b independent, but close enough that I can get there if she really needs me to. And I have all the faith in the world in her! It would be so wrong for me to shelter her and not let her spread her wings.
Thanks Dan for all of the great stories! Noah is a very lucky boy!
It was scarier when she climbed and fell, getting a huge goose egg on her forehead from hitting a wooden platform on the way down.
I've been thinking about this and guess I approach life a bit differently. I'm here to be my kids' safety net if they should fall, not to help them every little bit along the way. My kids explore and experience life, within certain parameters that help them be safe, knowing they can trust me and my husband to be there if they need us. They move with confidence through the world, and ask for help and guidance when they need it. My kids are 13, 12, 10, 6 and 4.
I was overprotected in many ways growing up and have struggled finding a balance raising my children. Watching the confidence they have developed by having the room to pick themselves up after a "fall" has been almost as rewarding as watching their successes...not that it makes letting go easy but most worthwhile things are not easy.
My children are older (14 and 16) and I still experience that feeling of terror when I have to let go and give them a chance to "climb" to success or "fall" to failure on their own. It's so hard to bite my tongue and not try to tell them what to do, or to be safe but I know if they're ever going to be responsible adults making good choices, I have to back off sometimes.
This was a beautiful and poignant post - thanks for sharing it with us. You'll continue to have times like this with Noah throughout his life.
Part of our job as parents is to raise independent children. We want them to grow up and flourish and be capable adults. Far too many young adults have always had mom or dad helping them and don't know how to even get up and to school or a job on time. Noah is obviously ready to test his wings a little. And that's good! He should. When my older son was about 20 months old, we were at a park & he wanted to climb the curved ladder thing. I had an infant in a carrier, so the best I could do would be to break his fall if he fell. He didn't. I turned around to see out pediatrician watching. And clapping. He wasn't in danger of anything worse than a broken bone.
My two year old girl is fearless and her father is a hover parent. While I am petrified of the outside world influencing her I believe in letting her take reasonable risks like climbing because there are things like the fire ants she's had an allergic reaction to and so much more that I have to protect her from for a while yet. I think there's a balance between allowing the risks and keeping safe.
I just want to say that I've been following your blog for a while now and it's so awesome seeing pictures of you and Noah. There's not many of them so it's great seeing you two together. You both are so incredibly happy and it's contagious! It brightens my day!
It's always scary to let go a little. I had kind of a similar experience in the actual hike-and-climb realm when we went on a "goat walk" a couple of Easters ago (he was probably nearly 5) with a friend of mine who had a couple of adorable shaggy goats. It was a whole big group of us with a few other kids around my son's age, which was nice, and the hike itself is very easy. But at the end there was this tall outcropping of rock that the kids all started climbing on. It wasn't really THAT tall, maybe 15 feet or so, but tall enough that a kid could get good and hurt if they fell from it. I let him go up there, heart palpitating, and he was completely fine getting up and down. Then, of all things, when he was nearly all the way at the bottom, he slipped in the leaves and underbrush and slid a ways and a stick caught up right up at the top of his butt crack. It didn't break the skin, but it must have hurt quite a bit. He cried for a bit, and then he got over it. That's the other thing about letting go, sometimes they do fall and get hurt, and you just have to be there to love them up and tell them it's ok.
The other thing I've been going through with him lately is swimming. He's 7 now and he has always been kind of water-phobic. But this summer we've spent a LOT of time at the nearby river and he has gotten good at going underwater and has even started swimming a little bit...and while I'm super proud of him and I'm trying to let go a little bit (the kid has no water sense, I swear he has inhaled and swallowed half of that dang river in all of this learning), I also feel the need to point out that awkward doggy paddling for five feet does NOT mean he can go wherever he wants, LOL. But I also did help him across the river (it's fairly narrow) over the deep part in the middle, which I think boosted his confidence a lot, "Look what I did!!" And I let him jump off the rocks on the other side with a life vest on, which he *totally* loved because it made him feel like the big kids who do it all day ;)
It's a tough balance, but it sounds like you're doing it exactly right :)
When I caught my 2 1/2 yr old son on top of the fridge within the 1 minute I was in the bathroom, I knew my "control" of him was over.
Approximately 2 weeks after graduating from High School, my daughter hopped a plane to Nairobi, Kenya to do a documentary on the urban poor living in the slums. I knew in my heart that she needed to go, needed to make a difference in this world but my head kept thinking about the dangers. I let her go with many prayers and warnings about not drinking the water. She is in nursing school now and I've been informed that she now wants to go to Zimbabwe. >sigh
Listen to the song by Barbara Stresand from the play Into the Woods. Children will Listen, This song is a wonderful learning tool for parents, I "reared my children to be independent not because I did not care but knew they would feel capable not only as children but as adults. They are! There is nothing worse that to hover over children, that causes mote accidents than ever. Most of the time you do an outstanding job.
As a single mom to a soon-to-be 27 yr old, I spent his childhood worried about him taking chances, growing up...but I realized it was my responsibility to make sure that he was able to take care of himself. Mommy's don't live forever, you know. I'm happy to say that he's grown into a wonderful & compassionate human being. He has a fantastic work ethic and still lives by mom's rules: don't do anything illegal, unethical or immoral. It's hard when they're young, but in order for them to be successful adults, we have to let go. Sorry for rambling. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...
By the time I had my third one, it was easier. I was protective of my oldest girl, little more free with my second boy, and totally in the calm with my youngest girl. It's a process I had to learn. Doesn't mean I don't pay attention, just means I allow room for them to fall to see they have the power on their own to get back up.
My youngest has been climbing everything since before his 2nd birthday. He actually pulled himself from the bottom bunk, over the bed rail and onto the top bunk....like chin up style. After I realized what a monkey he was I started providing all the safe-ish methods to get his energy out I could find...
Very awesome, it is hard to let go that's for sure.
"But then it became clear that basically doing it all for him and not letting him have the chance to fall was putting a damper on his fun, not teaching him that he’s strong enough to do it on his own, and not giving him the chance to slip and tumble where it was more or less safe to do so. And so… I bit my lip. And I let him go." ~just about the best thing I've read...thank you for sharing
When my daughter was in kindergarten I realized I was feeling nervous ALL the time. She was my oldest, very naive (still is at 12), and hadn't been around ANY blocks. I realized that for the first time there were people who would influence her and I could not control everything. It was scary. At some point they have to learn to leave among everyone else. But age 5 or 6 seems so young!
<3 this. Thanks for sharing. This is "Single Dad Laughing" to the max. Noah will never outgrow those. I think we will see more of these because the time you have will be quality time. Imagine the hikes you go on with him as he grows older...until YOU will need help from him. :) The time flies by quickly. Dan. Treasure these little moment.
When my 4 year old goes out on a limb and does things on his own is quite frankly when I'm the proudest of him. I'm proud of him all the time, don't get me wrong, but when he demonstrates how fearless he is in the face of a new or scary situation, I know in my heart that he's going to be able to handle whatever life throws at him. I'm always there to catch him if he falls, but he hasn't needed me to do so yet. The other parents at the playground think I'm nuts because I have always, even when he was a young toddler, let him do his thing and never hover.
Oh Noah reminds me so much of my little man, Kai (in my profile pic. They make the same silly faces with those big beautiful brown eyes! This story touches me because I am having those feelings of sadness as Kai too is starting to need me less. It is a mixture of emotions. I am so proud of him but it makes my heart ache a little that he doesn't need me like he used to.
WTG Noah! And WTG Dad! My youngest son was climbing all over everything before he could walk, riding a two wheeler at 3, he's earned the nickname "Danger Boy". For the frist 3 years of his life he had bruises and goose eggs on his forehead! He has always been fiercely indepepndent. But he assesses situations and will have it fairly mastered in his mind by the time he tries things. Most of the time, he rocks it! Ironically, I trust this kid's agility and ability way more than I do my own! lol Boys especially, have to be allowed the accomplishment of achieiving on their own!
I have a little boy who is 4 with anxiety issues and other concerns. To try and make things easier for him, I've shielded him, and now I am learning that by trying to protect him, I have quite possibly made things worse. Not only do I need to learn to let go, but also to encourage him to push his limits and just try things - that life really isn't so bad...
I have 5 children, it scared me with each one of them. To tell you the truth it still does. My oldest is 16.... my youngest is 6. It is difficult to let them take chances with out my help. However, they have always impressed me on how much they can do.... It just makes me a very proud mom...